A Promise and a Plea
by Nizhoni
Summary: Following the camp battle, Newt is captured. WCKD keeps him as leverage but being non-immune and a threat to Ava's operation, she can't have him getting in the way. She leaves it to Jansen to keep him in line. The Rat Man wants to break him and Newt has never felt more worthless but he remains ardent in trusting Thomas is out there and will do everything he can to keep his promise.


"Newt!"

His ears bled, hissing with a current that coursed through his nerves but even still he could hear Thomas. He could hear the barmy bastard calling out to him. His voice roared over gunfire, like a desperate and savage plea that tore from his lungs. " Hold on, Newt!"

 _I'm trying Tommy, oh lord am I trying._

The war raged on; lost in a cloud of dirt that kicked up around the rebels and the WCKD troops. A commanding blaze flared high and spread like a devil's hand that shrouded the blackened sky.

"Newt!"

He wished he could call back, but _bloody hell_ this grenade hurt. It was embedded in his chest, clasping onto him with dozens of charged barbs. The power of it matched the pace of his pulse, signalling a jolt of electricity each time his heart beat.

The pain was swift, searing and cruel. It felt like he was coming apart. Like at any given moment steam would start shoot'n from his ears and his skin, it'd peel' way revealing nothing more than a pile of crisp bones. Blisters formed on his throat and his salvia burbled with a warm and revolting mixture that tasted metallic on his tongue. It made him gag and a red, slick substance spilled from his lips.

He touched his mouth and pulled his hand back, shaken by the crimson stain that now painted his fingertips. " _I can't,_ " he thought, wiping the trembling hand across his pant leg. " _Not here. Not like this_. _Not after all we've bloody well been through!_ "

They'd escaped the Maze. They'd lost Alby and Chuck and then Winston to this God-forsaken journey but in spite of it all they found the Right Arm.

He couldn't just keel over and let WCKD win.

No.

He wasn't about to accept that. Shuck to this being his end. Shuck to letting his friends die in vain!

He had to get back to Thomas and the others. " _It can't have all been for noth'n."_

He groaned as he pushed himself off of the barrel and forced his feet forward, making it only a few steps before another spark rippled through him. It sent him tumbling hard into the bedlam, convulsing as he hit the ground. He clutched his chest and looked out into the yard. The world was hazy in his brown eyes. His lids felt heavy. They fluttered for a moment and fell closed and then rose a second time more slowly. "Don't stop," he told himself, a quiet reminder to keep moving. He dug his nails into the dirt, clawing at the ground and dragging himself through a spattering of gnarled metal and sullen bodies. If he could only make it to Thomas then everything might be all right. They could escape, the whole lot of 'em. They'd hide out for a little while, somewhere in the mountains with caverns that the Bergs couldn't track. WCKD might even think they'd turned tail and run. In time they could find other rebels. Amass a whole new Right Arm and take Ava and that entire shucking operation down.

They weren't through yet. They could still save the other Immunes. They just had to save themselves first…

Heavy footsteps thundered past his head and an explosion sounded nearby.

…Then when it was over, Newt hoped beyond hope that Paradise was actually awaiting them, just like Jorge had said.

What would it be like, to live in Paradise? Not a place that posed as a prison but a right true home. Someplace he belonged.

Newt was fractured. He knew this. When WCKD had taken his memories, they also took the better parts of him. It was a dissection that left him a stray. No more a man, than a hollow shell of what he could have been. Watching his friends die in the Glade, having no power to stop it, no reminders of what he could be missing and certainly no hope for an escape, he'd found himself listing into the dark.

He knew now that it was WCKD that had coaxed him into it, causing him to believe that he truly had nothing to lose. It was no doubt another one of their sick little tests, and if it had been anyone else, Alby or Minho or any of the other Gladers, they probably would have passed.

But it was he, and of course Newt fell right in line, giving those bloody scientists the exact outcome they'd wanted. He was ashamed to admit that he'd been weak and that he really had wanted to die. In fact he welcomed death like an old pal (obviously one he couldn't remember) and when he jumped, he did so with absolutely no reservations.

Minho was the one to find him; alone and crumpled on the Maze floor like a sorry sack of limbs. He picked Newt up in his arms, and took him back to the Glade. He never told the others what really happened. His explanation was that he found Newt in the forest after the blond had tripped over some uneven grass.

…

 _"I'm not going to ask why you did it," Minho said to him that same night, after the excitement had finally worn down and it was just the two of them left in the tent. He was sat in the wicker chair beside Newt's hammock, staring at the boy with a hard, overwrought expression._

 _Newt glared at his hands, twiddling his thumbs. A heady hatred dwelled inside him, resentful for having been rescued against his will._

 _"You should'a left me for the Grievers."_

 _That got Minho, and he stood quick, the sudden gesture forced Newt to glance up and meet Minho's eyes. "You're my friend Newt, did you really expect me to just leave you there?"_

 _"Friend?" Newt let out a low, sour chuckle, "We ain't friends mate. We're just a couple of lads trapped in the same shucking place, being forced to put up wit each other."_

 _A look of hurt flashed across Minho's face, but only for instant. It was quickly replaced by a nagging frustration. His eyes narrowed and he stepped close to where Newt was laying, jabbing a finger into his chest. "Get this straight, I brought you back Newt. That means you owe me. So you can say we're not friends, you can even believe it, but one thing you can't do is jump off a shucking wall. You can't do that again. Not to me and not to us!"_

 _Newt stared back, angry tears burning in his eyes, "Why'd you have to save me, huh?" He pushed the larger boy away, wobbling clumsily in the hammock as he did. Minho jumped forward, catching him before he fell out. He held on, even as Newt began to pound his fists into Minho's chest, "I wanted out!" Newt yelled, "You ruined everything!"_

 _When it was over, and his body slumped forward, completely spent from sobbing, Minho was still there holding onto him. He laid Newt back into the hammock, pulling the covers over his body. Still hiccupping silently, Newt turned away from the him, curling into himself._

 _"I'm sorry," Minho whispered._

 _Newt closed his eyes and listened._

 _"Not for finding you. I'm grateful for that, though I know you're furious at me for it."_

 _He heard Minho shuffle forward, and then a large, gentle hand was placed on his shoulder. He didn't shy away from it._

 _"I'm sorry we didn't notice what was going on sooner, that you felt so alone in all this." He squeezed Newt's shoulder. "But you're not alone Newt. We're here, and we need you."_

 _…_

Minho never held what happened that day against Newt, not for what he'd said or for what he'd done. He treated him every bit the same as before, like a true friend would. And in time, Newt forgave him. He knew deep down that Minho had done him a favour. He'd saved Newt from a terrible, misguided mistake that could have cost him his life. Despite how fragmented that life may have seemed. If the roles had been reversed, Newt would have done the exact same thing with no hesitation. The whole ordeal, in spite of how painful it was to look back on, had put things into perspective. He never would have guessed that it'd take snapping his leg in three different parts and nearly dying to realize just how important the Gladers were to him.

There was Alby, who'd rushed into his tent like some kind of feral, papa bear and immediately started roaring out orders for supplies he could use to fashion Newt a proper splint. And there was Frypan, who'd brought him his meals and sat with him even if he just wanted to eat in silence. Winston made him laugh, always goin'n on about how the Glade was utter shit without Newt there to keep Alby from bossing them around so much. _"Better get back on you're feet soon Shank head, a mutiny's at hand."_

Chuck came along too...to annoy him mostly. He liked to poke at Newt's leg, constantly asking him questions about the accident.

" _Did it hurt? How'd you manage to fall so hard in the grass? Bet your leg is real gross under that splint, isn't it?_ "

Thankfully Minho was usually there to change the subject at around the fifth poke, when he was sure Newt was ready to murder the poor kid. He'd steer him out of the tent with some explanation that Newt needed to rest.

 _"Well why aren't you coming?"_ Chuck usually protested.

 _"Someone needs to stay here and make sure this Slinthead doesn't break his other leg too."_

Minho rarely left him alone in the tent. Only venturing out to run the Maze. Even when Newt was being a right arse to him at the beginning, Minho stuck it out. Through the icy glares and bitterly accusing words, he'd stayed by Newt's side. They all did. When he needed them the most, his friends came through for him.

They saved him.

They were the reason he wanted to live. Why he wanted to fight. Why he longed so badly for a future he thought they'd never have. Well, until now.

 _"There is a place for us, out there...somewhere._ " He remembered saying those words to Thomas and he believed in them with every ounce of hope that was still left inside him. For the first time since escaping the Maze, he had reason to gaze ahead rather than over his shoulder. His stolen past could remain that, a thing of the past, a memory of forgotten memories.

And he was okay with it, if that also meant he could make it to the safe haven with his friends, if he could see them all again.

See _him_ again.

Because it seemed all that mattered now was a distant voice amid chaos.

The voice of a boy he followed into fire.

 _Hell_ , he'd follow him anywhere.

 _Tommy…_

"Newt! No!"

Suddenly two sets of portly hands clutched his arms, heaving him up with a brute force that sent electricity flying. Newt fell into their hold, his head hobbling from one shoulder to the next like a clumsy game of tug of war. They dragged him away. His heals dug into the earth, creating a zigzag path he hoped his friends could use to find him. He squirmed against the troops, but his body felt tired and so damn useless.

All he could do was lay there, allowing the men to take him away, back to WCKD. To that place of torture where he was going to end up strung up in some lab, with all kinds of tubes stick'n out of him and livi'n like one of 'em damn human blood bags.

"No-no-no-no!" Thomas cried out in the distance, his words holding together like a long drawn out moment of realization.

They'd lost.

…

He thought about that day in the Glade, when Thomas ran into the Maze to save Alby and Minho; how he'd been drawn to the new boy like a heedless moth to a flame.

The Shank confused Newt to no end. He defied every rule like it was his job. He took risks, even if it meant putting himself in danger. He was curious, and bloody brilliant in the Maze; accomplished more in three days than all 'em runners (him included) had done over an entire three years.

It seemed only natural that the others would look to him after Alby's death.

Newt was never upset at Thomas for becoming the leader. In fact he was proud of his friend for all he'd done in order to break them out.

He had no problem standing as his second.

Though Tommy never saw it that way, because as far as he was concerned, he and Newt were a team. It was their friendship that kept them both thriving. They needed one another, to stay grounded. Maybe even to keep the other sane. In the complex anarchy that had become their lives, the bond they shared was the only thing that they'd found any truth to. So they kept that bond sacred. When Thomas began to question his choices it was Newt who'd been the one to buoy faith back into his friend's heart. And when the cranks trapped Newt, Thomas was right there to flank him like a soldier in battle, distracting 'em things till they'd both found an escape.

They were supposed to make it to the end...together.

Now Newt had failed Tommy, and whatever WCKD might do to him, however many ways they could find to tear him apart, this fallout was far more painful.

…

The propellers of the Berg whirred and spun to life with a whoosh of air that ruffled and displaced the earth around them. The troops clung to him tighter, pushing through the force and loping onto the steal platform. It clanged and clattered beneath their feet.

"He's the last one, close the doors!" Ava's shrill voice demanded. The shaft rotated, signalling the pulleys and gears to take effect. The door to the bunker began to lift, squealing like a hundred thousand keys on a steal piano being milled all at once. It was a song, one that played to the fever of Thomas's calls and hung in the air like a devotion to their friendship.

" _I don't want to end up like 'em Tommy, like all those kids we left back there."_

" _Hey," Thomas said, placing his firm, calloused palm across the back of Newt's neck and giving him a shake, "That's not gonna happen, ever. I won't let it."_

The memory played behind his lids, providing Newt with one last morsel of strength to pick his chin up and peer out through the narrowed opening of the closing Berg.

He found them, stood in the mess of it all and just feet away. Frypan and Brenda appeared frozen in shock and Minho, who fought his tears, held onto Thomas' chest. His grip dug into the fabric of Thomas' shirt, firmly warning him to keep still.

He hadn't actually looked at Thomas yet. He didn't want see the disappointment he knew he'd find staring back in the other boy's eyes. He wasn't sure he could survive that.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ he wanted to tell him, _"I'm so sorry Tommy."_

The Berg continued to pull shut and so Newt forced himself to fight against the fear that gnawed inside him; completely unable to keep from catching one last glimpse of Thomas before they'd be ripped apart entirely.

He'd always be weak.

The dark haired boy was already watching him. Not with disappointment, as Newt had thought, but with a glassy eyed gaze that looked as though it might shatter apart at any moment. Thomas' shoulders shook, and he gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head as if to say, " _This can't be happening._ "

 _It is Tommy._

Tears welled Newt's eyes, falling down in salty streaks that cleansed the grime from his cheeks.

 _I know you'll make it without me._

As if he had read Newt's mind, Thomas' jaw twitched and he clenched his fists tight. His chest rose in preparation, and in a sudden bolt forward, he broke free from Minho's grip. The others took chase, hauling him back as quickly as he took off. They struggled to keep hold as he fought against them. His eyes remained on Newt, instilling his message with a wild determination.

 _"I'll find you Newt. I'll find you...and I'll bring you home."_

In those last fleeting seconds before the doors finally shut, Newt's lips quirked up in a weak, discerning smirk. "I'll see ya, Tommy."

It wasn't a goodbye. Thomas had made sure of that.

Still holding onto that silent promise as the Berg took flight, Newt's lids closed and he fell into unconsciousness.


End file.
